I figured now would be as good of time as any to start an NBA thread, even though we're days from having the season cut maybe in half, and perhaps weeks from having it canceled. Some thoughts:

David Stern is I think showing himself to be a failure as a commissioner. While the commissioner is employed by the owners, he represents the sport as whole. His failure to get sides talking, offer enough olive branches, mediate, negotiate, and too frequently take a hard line against players is coming back to bite him in the rear, and fast. In the NFL people said Roger Goddell was in over his head, but in the end he did nearly all the right things, didn't miss a game, got a 10-year deal, and everyone is fairly happy, with the general consensus the owners maybe got a little bit better deal, but not too much at the expense of the players. Nary a scratch on the league. The whole event a distant memory, with a cloudless sky in front of them.

No such chance for Stern. Maybe little left to salvage, with the "who cares" meter ranking at an all-time high for the NBA, and fans happy to accept the NCAA, and NHL growing in popularity. There's now talk of cities suing the NBA due to lost revenue, with Memphis leading the pack. Though I do think if the NBA can sign, and soon, it will come back in time, the damages will be, are becoming, immense.

And just today, the bombshell courtesy of Bryant Gumbel, comparing Stern to a "plantation overseer" which went way over the top, and probably showed himself to be more of a tool or fool than Stern, and a comment that hurt the players just as well I would think. At the same time, I feel as though Gumbal was expressing the frustration a lot of people feel as no solution seems in sight.

Plenty of blame goes to Hunter as well. No doubt. I think when the NFL was locked out, inside both sides knew they had to give at least some. With the NBA, it seems like no one wants to give a single penny. It's almost as bad as Congress.

Alpe d'Huez wrote:Plenty of blame goes to Hunter as well. No doubt. I think when the NFL was locked out, inside both sides knew they had to give at least some. With the NBA, it seems like no one wants to give a single penny. It's almost as bad as Congress.

Exactly! That's what has pushed me to the point of not caring. I don't think I'll even miss the NBA this season. What they're doing will prove to be detrimental to the league when the lockout ends. Remember the 98-99 lockout? When they came back, ratings and attendance fell like 3%. I think it will fall even more this time around, and the number will continue to grow as time goes on.

Today talks completely broke down with zero progress, and no new meetings are scheduled. Not even with the mediator. They still remain $100m apart. Those involved are calling the whole situation "extremely grim."

While you could think they could split this down the middle, if you look at a 10-year CBA, that amounts to a billion dollars. So it's not as easy as it sounds, especially when they can hardly agree on anything.

I have trouble embracing an entire season of NCAA basketball; it bores me. They need to eliminate 10 seconds from the shot clock, create a sense of urgency in the games. After that, move the 3 point line back some; they all take shots from 3ft behind it anyway

I much prefer the NCAA to the NBA, but I agree with you that they need some changes, and the two you list are a good place to start.

In the NBA the players are accusing the owners of greed and being obstructive (pot calling kettle black, anyone?). The owners are saying that only 8 teams make money while the players say 23 are. The funny thing is that the NBA books are open and independently audited. So how exactly are they counting???

The bad news for the players is that I think they were expecting the big market owners, and wealthy owners, would create pressure on the others to compromise. But it looks like Jerry Buss, Paul Allen, and even Mark Cuban are resolute and in solidarity.

It's my opinion that the the league must do something to make it more equitable, and beneficial for small market teams, lest we're going to have LA, Miami, Dallas, Chicago and Boston (and maybe NY or NJ) winning year in and year out, and teams like Milwaukee, Indiana, Charlotte having less and less of a chance, and losing money every year. But I don't know the intricacies at this point, or what financial solutions other than a harder cap, or restrictions on things like sign and trade (cut and pay out) or changes to the Larry Bird exception are planned.

I also believe the league could contract by 2-4 teams, cut the playoffs by a quarter, cut the pre-season in half, and maybe even cut the season by 10 games or more. But the owners won't do these.

I do believe the onus is now on the players to agree to a 50/50 split in principle, and get back to the table as soon as possible, or the owners will cancel the entire season. But after getting 57% for the last several years, I don't know that they are flexible enough to do this. If they do sit it out, I think they are going to find next season they'll get even less. In the long run, the sport, and league, are bigger than the players.

ImmaculateKadence wrote:I have trouble embracing an entire season of NCAA basketball; it bores me. They need to eliminate 10 seconds from the shot clock, create a sense of urgency in the games. After that, move the 3 point line back some; they all take shots from 3ft behind it anyway

Those would be improvements for the NCAA MBB.

But in regard to the NBA, 81 games of players not caring too much about the outcomes some of the time bores me. I recall a Charles Barkley comment after loss in January when he was with Phoenix. It went something like, "It's just a January game". The implication was that the loss didn't matter at that time of the year. The cause IMO is too many games, too much travel, players too tired to put out 100% every game. The only time I will watch the NBA anymore is during playoffs when players WILL put out a full effort. The solution would be to shorten the 6 month season (7 with playoffs) by about 1 game a week. That would be about 26 games. Getting everyone to agree on reducing revenues would be impossible though.

Alpe d'Huez wrote:I also believe the league could contract by 2-4 teams, cut the playoffs by a quarter, cut the pre-season in half, and maybe even cut the season by 10 games or more. But the owners won't do these.

Last season I took a look at the schedule of my local team, the Charlotte Bobcats and counted, IIRC, 22 instances where they had to play back-to-back games. And these usually were played in different cities, as if playing two consecutive nights in the same venue wasn't hard enough. This is absurd and can only be solved by shortening the schedule by a good 15 games and getting rid of at least two teams. I would start with the LA Clippers and Charlotte. I say this as a native Charlottean- after the sordid history of the Charlotte Hornets (now in New Orleans, of course), my hometown should never, ever, have been awarded a second NBA franchise.

Of course, my case for shortening the NBA season might not appear so compelling to most of you if I come clean and admit I also support shortening the Grand Tours to two weeks.

But in regard to the NBA, 81 games of players not caring too much about the outcomes some of the time bores me. I recall a Charles Barkley comment after loss in January when he was with Phoenix. It went something like, "It's just a January game". The implication was that the loss didn't matter at that time of the year. The cause IMO is too many games, too much travel, players too tired to put out 100% every game. The only time I will watch the NBA anymore is during playoffs when players WILL put out a full effort. The solution would be to shorten the 6 month season (7 with playoffs) by about 1 game a week. That would be about 26 games. Getting everyone to agree on reducing revenues would be impossible though.

I generally agree but the travel/play schedule could get cut by 50% and it would still be tough to take every game at 100%. Bike riders certainly don't try, either. It's difficult to take the players, league and game seriously anymore. The constant deification of young players for endorsements has become more of the focus than the play IMO.
Of course I'm in Seattle and the NBA moved our franchise to...can't remember. Hoping Clay Bennett is choking on lost revenue; the lying sack of sh*t.

I don't like the idea of cutting the season short. It's not really a problem at 82games, and it certainly isn't difficult to play back to back games whether at home or on the road. To me personally, I've always maintained an interest from opening night to the finals. The problem with the league isn't the amount games; it's the collective egos of both owner and player.

Can't find a list right now, but pretty sure Charlotte is one of the teams losing the most money. Either the league is going to have to find a way to cut costs (players refuse), share more revenue (already trying), or increase revenue (more games would be impossible at this point).

Also, as I count it, the NBA has the longest season of all, especially when you consider the pre-season. The league play starts on November 1st, they play games every day, and the post-season lasts into late June, with nearly two months of playoff games. The pre-season often starts in late September, and that doesn't include summer league play. All this means the only month the NBA doesn't seem to play some sort of ball or other is July. And actually the last lock-out shortened year the post-season stretched into July. Talk about a watered down, worn out product.

Alpe d'Huez wrote:Also, as I count it, the NBA has the longest season of all, especially when you consider the pre-season. The league play starts on November 1st, they play games every day, and the post-season lasts into late June, with nearly two months of playoff games. The pre-season often starts in late September, and that doesn't include summer league play. All this means the only month the NBA doesn't seem to play some sort of ball or other is July. And actually the last lock-out shortened year the post-season stretched into July. Talk about a watered down, worn out product.

Are you sure about that? If you combine spring training through the WS, I think baseball has just as long a season if not a little longer. I didn't do the math myself, just estimating. Regardless, we know MLB plays the twice the games as the NBA.

Anyway, I'm getting off topic. What I was going to add is they could shorten the first playoff series to a best five rather than seven, even the conference semis, but anything other than that is unnecessary. Years ago, I believe the first round was a best of five. Am I the only one that doesn't get bored with the NBA season? What I get bored with is the over-paid thugs that sit games out, refusing to contest a dunk because they don't want to get posterized, hack-a-shaq tactics, flopping players, etc. That's the kind of the stuff that can make the NBA boring, watered down, or worn out. It's not the length of the season.

Oldman wrote:...Of course I'm in Seattle and the NBA moved our franchise to...can't remember. Hoping Clay Bennett is choking on lost revenue; the lying sack of sh*t.

O-Clay-homa. While we're throwing him under the bus, let's also throw in David Stern, the other *rick who helped yank the Sonics out of Seattle. Stern argued then that the team's homecourt, the Seattle Center Colliseum, was not modern enough to generate the kind of revenue he'd like. Now, OFC, Stern has talked about bringing an NBA team back to Seattle, but possibly only if Seattle or the new team could build a new arena. But I've not heard any news of that lately.

MarkvW wrote:I'm enjoying the labor unrest more than I enjoy the NBA season.

you probably say that tongue-in-cheek, but I'm not too far from that. For me though, with the NFL season in full swing, I really would not care about the NBA at all until the NFL season is over or at least until the NFL playoffs start. I'll bet there are a ton of folks who feel the same way. January would be a good start up for the NBA. I can wish for an ice cream cone the size of Jupiter too, but won't get it. Seriously though, I think the league would be healthier by attracting more fans if the season was shorter.